May 11, 2012

"... less cooperative, and less generous. Smells matter too: mere exposure to the scent of an all-purpose cleaner makes people keep their environment cleaner while they eat. In both cases, people were not consciously aware of the effect of the cue on their behavior. Or consider this one: people’s judgments about strangers are affected by whether they are drinking iced coffee or hot coffee! Those given iced coffee are more likely to see other people as more selfish, less sociable, and, well, colder than those who are given hot coffee. This, too, happens quite unconsciously."

I was searching through my ebook of "Nudge" today after writing that post about offering drug-addicted women $300 to get themselves sterilized. Offering money is the crudest way to incentivize behavior you don't want to compel (or can't — ethically or legally — compel), and I was interested in whether Sunstein and Thaler talked about sterilization. They don't, but they do talk about deterring pregnancy:

Teenage girls who see that other teenagers are having children are more likely to become pregnant themselves. Obesity is contagious. If your best friends get fat, your risk of gaining weight goes up.... (Page 55.)

Teenage pregnancy is a serious problem for many girls, and those who have one child, at (say) eighteen, often become pregnant again within a year or two. Several cities, including Greensboro, North Carolina, have experimented with a “dollar a day” program, by which teenage girls with a baby receive a dollar for each day in which they are not pregnant. Thus far the results have been extremely promising. A dollar a day is a trivial cost to the city, even for a year or two, so the plan’s total cost is extremely low, but the small recurring payment is salient enough to encourage teenage mothers to take steps to avoid getting pregnant again. And because taxpayers end up paying a significant amount for many children born to teenagers, the costs appear to be far less than the benefits. Many people are touting “dollar a day” as a model program for helping reduce teenage pregnancies. (Surely there are more such programs to be invented. Consider that a nudge to think of one.) (Page 234.)

Consider that a nudge to think of one? Are you nudged to rethink free birth control?

ADDED: The notion that hot coffee makes people less selfish and more "sociable" reminds me of the Coffee Party. Remember that? The liberal answer to the Tea Party.

I always get sleepy in a boardroom. Or in any office environment for that matter. It's the strategy of the animal that goes to sleep in order to avoid being eaten by fierce competitives. But I also want to smack cooperative generous types upside the head. A pox on both their houses.